


the gospel according to charles

by Murf1307



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Gen Work, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-21 03:31:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12448764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: Stories proliferate in the Xavier Institute about the past, but anyone who knows the truth won't say anything at all.





	the gospel according to charles

There is a certain martyrdom, a _gospel according to Charles Xavier_ , that passes down the hallways of the Institute.  It’s the story in hushed voices, the vague sadness one evening in Beast’s blue eyes, in the downturn of Mystique’s mouth.

It’s the story of a summer, the first summer where people died, and the summer after that, and the fall -- and the fall is always when things come apart.  Depending on who you ask, and when, the story might start like this:

_Well, I heard that the Professor and Magneto knew each other once -- before Magneto killed Kennedy, or something.  Nobody knows for sure.  It’s weird, but I think it had something to do with Mystique?_

Or, if you ask very nicely, when Mystique is very tired one night in November, she might tell you:

“Charles always believed the best of people, but he never could handle it when they failed to measure up to what he wanted.”

No one ever knows how to respond to that, and the story dies right there in the silence, in the dark.

 

* * *

 

Jubilee sits on a table in the lab, watching Beast work on another iteration of Scott’s glasses.  He’s like a man possessed sometimes, holing up in his lab for days, weeks on end, and surfacing with something new, something to protect someone, or all of them.  One night, she asks about the past.

“Before?  Well, I think it all started falling apart well before they left the first time.  I don’t think it’s that hard to see where it started.”

“When did it start?”

“The night Darwin died.  It changed everything.”

 

* * *

 

Darwin is a ghost among many, lingering in the corners of the story -- especially when Mystique talks about Havok, Scott’s dead brother -- and no one ever knows what to ask about him.

One day, after training, Jean senses a thought when Mystique looks at Scott: _God, he moves like his brother._

So she asks, unapologetic for overhearing -- this is who she is, after all.

“Alex died exactly the way you’d expect,” Mystique murmurs, a little rueful smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.  “I think it’s the way he would’ve wanted to go, really.”

 

* * *

 

Another ghost comes around when storms shake the frame of the mansion, wind whistling and shrieking loud enough to make the youngest children at the Institute curl up in bed and cry.  Beast stands at a window in the kitchen, as Mystique warms a cup of coffee.

Their voices are low, as Hank murmurs, _It sounds like Sean_ , and Mystique nods, murmurs back, _I wish…_

He puts an arm around her, as though he knows exactly how that sentence ends.  

 

* * *

 

The Institute’s ghosts are never quite visible in daylight, but they’re present in a mist of softness and solemnity that falls over late October and lasts until February.  The Professor goes weeks without smiling; Mystique trains everyone twice as hard; and you’d be lucky to see Beast at all.

And when, finally, someone -- Ororo, probably, because she, at least, had met him -- asks, quietly, about the chessboard in the corner of the study, the one that has never changed in all the time she’s been here, this is the response she gets:

“I suppose it’s there in case he ever decides to come home.”


End file.
